


The Good Men

by murg



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate History, Antisemitism, Biblical References, Character Development, Dark Comedy, Eating Disorders, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Nazis, Non-Chronological, Non-Sexual Submission, Racism, Science Fiction, Slurs, Unresolved Sexual Tension, i don't know what i'm doing but i'm doing it, of a bad kind, supersoldiers (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 03:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3634533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murg/pseuds/murg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Helmut wishes he were dead. He wishes he were the first one gone, but he has a bet to win for Dr. Kleidermann. He has to hang on. He has the power to make someone happy, damn it, and he’s going to use it. It’s the only power he has. He’s going to abuse it to its full potential, like all humans do. Because Helmut is undeniably human. He is. He is human.</i>
</p><p>An anecdote. Helmut Sommerfeld was Thomas’s best boy, even when he wasn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Good Men

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably make more sense with the first story in mind, since this takes place during epitaph i of that, but whatever. You do you, man.  
> Context if you're lazy: Alternate history where the Third Reich didn't invade the Soviet Union, WWII was settled with a tense armistice that no one really got much out of, and whacky Nazis do their whacky Nazi things. Main character here applies to join a program that makes super soldiers and regrets it immensely. Shocking.

The Good Men

 

An anecdote: It’s all we ever amount to.

 

I don’t do this for my health, you know, Dr. Kleidermann says as he fiddles with the cap of his pen, eyes trailing over the list. 

Helmut stares at the ceiling. He thinks of his sister. He thinks of Wiebke. He thinks, quite inconveniently, of Thomas König. His heart does not ache. This is not a romance. It is merely intrusive. 

You’re probably going to die here, Dr. Kleidermann says. He is a good man. Good men are honest. Truly good men are also practical, and know when to quit. Dr. Kleidermann is one such a specimen. Helmut respects him for it. 

Too thin, Dr. Kleidermann remarks. You don’t eat your meals. It’s to be expected, I suppose, but we really can’t afford to sustain people who can’t pull their weight. Literally and figuratively, I mean. You couldn’t even bench 18 kilograms, yesterday. 

Helmut’s palms are face-open and relaxed. He stares. He feels hazy. Dr. Kleidermann leans over him, obscuring his view of the ceiling. Helmut finds this distressing in a distant fashion. You’re breaking my staring contest with Heaven, he wants to say. But no. Helmut says nothing. His jaw doesn’t even tense. 

Dr. Kleidermann shines a light in his eyes. Helmut can’t find the energy to even squint. You’re dropping, he tells him. 

Dropping where? Helmut wants to ask. He doesn’t. He finds he doesn’t much care. Not too terribly. 

I can’t make you eat, Dr. Kleidermann says, switching to _du._ He doesn’t click his tongue, like Dr. Waltz, nor does he grab at Helmut’s bruised shoulder with clammy fingers, like Dr. Below. No, Dr. Kleidermann just looks at him evenly. 

Helmut likes him. Helmut likes how he doesn’t speak in euphemism or Latin. No, you can’t, he wants to say back. You’re right. And it’s my right to die. I’m too sad to eat. There’ll be no room, you see. And I don’t mind. I really don’t.

Dr. Kleidermann touches the side of his face with a gloved hand. Helmut hums weakly. 

Do you think you could hold on? Dr. Kleidermann asks. It is not a plea. It is simple curiosity. 

Yes, Helmut thinks distantly. Everything is very distant. He can’t make his eyes focus; it’s too much effort. He feels good, he decides. He feels as though he is a figment of his own imagination. 

I know you care for your family, obviously, or else you would have pocketed the money from this yourself or given it to some sweetheart, Dr. Kleidermann says, but they’re guaranteed what they have. So there’s no reason there for you to cling. Yet, here you are. Call me a romantic, but I prefer to believe there’s a reason. 

And if there isn’t? Helmut does not ask. Perhaps he is alive solely out of spite. Perhaps he clings to his coffin out of biological imperative. Fuck and live. 

Dr. Kleidermann clicks his tongue, but it is not the tongue click of Dr. Waltz, removing his hand. Helmut feels bereft in response, without an anchor. For a brief moment, he flounders in fear. Hold me, he wants to cry. Hold my head above water, my coffin is sinking. Hold me. 

Your name, Dr. Kleidermann says lowly, is Helmut Sommerfeld. 

Water runs down Helmut’s face in response. He is grateful. 

Dr. Kleidermann does not wipe it away. He returns to his needles. 

Helmut thinks of death. He thinks of how much he fears death. He thinks of how cold he is, his hair raised off his skin and his bones chattering in his skull. 

You don’t talk to the other boys, Dr. Kleidermann says absently. Do they bore you?

Helmut shrugs weakly.

Immelmann is set to survive, he continues. He’s the favorite. We have a betting pool, you know. About which of you will die and when. 

Helmut manages to focus his eyes on the gleam of Dr. Kleidermann’s glasses. He feels nothing. He is becoming very good at feeling nothing. 

Dr. Kleidermann rests a hand on Helmut’s ankle. It’s calming. Dr. Kleidermann is very good. Helmut thinks of the pigs going to the slaughter. He thinks of his neighbor, Herr Fröhlich, ushering them. He thinks of the way Herr Fröhlich would pat their flanks tenderly. He was very merciful. He did not desire painful death. Herr Fröhlich was very good, too. 

I do hope you decide to hang in there, Dr. Kleidermann says as he raises a needle. I’m the only one who has good money on you passing the fourth round. 

-

Helmut flinches, tapping his fingers against his hip. He licks his lips. 

The man reviewing his paperwork glances up at him critically. Helmut Sommerfeld, he says. 

Helmut nods tersely, like a spasm. 

No history of any Mischlingen, Aryan past…great-great-grandfather on maternal side? That’s impressive, Herr Sommerfeld. Are you sure this is accurate?

He blinks fiercely. Of course, he hisses out of his teeth. It’s more air than anything. His great-great-grandfather fought for the Holy Roman Empire. 

Aryan parentage, obvious pre-requisite. 

He thinks of his father. He thinks of misfiled paperwork. He pushes the hysteria down. 

How tall would you say you are?

Helmut shrugs. 

Says here one meter eighty-five. 

He nods. 

Seems accurate, looking at you. Fair enough. 

He thinks of the billboard in town, he thinks of the FÜNFHUNDERT PRO MONAT pay. He lets it ground him. FÜNFHUNDERT PRO MONAT. FÜNFHUNDERT PRO MONAT.

Medical history?

He blinks. 

You have no medical history attached to this, Herr Sommerfeld. 

His heart hammers in his ears. He licks his lips. He breathes. FÜNFHUNDERT PRO MONAT. He says, clearly, lightly, airily, „None to speak of.“

The man at the desk studies him. No traits that would separate you from the Aryan ideal, whatsoever?

„None.“ None. None. Helmut thinks of the Saxon Band, Helmut thinks of Thomas König and his beautiful brown eyes, Helmut thinks of his sister and her beautiful brown hair, Helmut thinks of fighting with his father over the legitimacy of Nazi foreign policy, Helmut thinks of Himmler’s SS waiting on the other side of that door behind the man at the desk. None. 

„None“, he repeats firmer, blinking fiercely. 

Alright, the man says. He takes out a stamp.

Helmut’s blood screams, beating against his eardrums. 

The man hands him a slip of paper. This is your receipt. It’ll take a few weeks to process your request, and if you’re accepted, you’ll be hearing from the government. You’ll know by the official seal on the envelope.

Helmut fumblingly traps it within his numb fingers. He nods and turns, stomach roiling. This is good. This is for the best. Really. 

Really. 

-

My name is Georg, says the one man who shares his name. 

Oh, Helmut thinks. He says nothing. He is working on becoming nothing. Part of this momentous undertaking involves detachment. 

Do you have a name? Georg asks.

No, Helmut thinks. He does not know why he thinks ‘no,’ as he _does_ have a name. Or maybe he doesn’t. He isn’t sure anymore. He’s only sure when Dr. Kleidermann tells him. 

-

Listen to my voice, Dr. Kleidermann says as gently as he can, which is perfunctory, at best. Listen to my voice, Sommerfeld, and try to calm down. 

Helmut gasps against his bucket, heaving and choking and weeping. He tries. He really does, he _tries._ He nuzzles his face against the rim, peering blearily up at the doctor. He waits for him to…he doesn’t know. But he anticipates. A sharpness. Ground. 

Kill me, he tries to croak.

Dr. Kleidermann chews on the inside of his cheek, nonplussed. I’d much rather not, he says because Dr. Kleidermann is a very smart man and he understands Helmut’s silence. He does not treat it like a great absence, but rather the death throes that it represents. Tumultuous and invisible. 

His hand rests on the nape of Helmut’s neck. Helmut continues to wait. He continues to drift. He thinks of Thomas’s breath, he thinks of Wiebke’s eyes, he thinks of Brigitte’s stomach. He heaves again. He drifts and drifts and feels as though he may float away, never to be found. 

I have you, Dr. Kleidermann says softly. I have you.

Helmut sobs wetly.

-

Helmut stares at his ceiling in his bedroom and he thinks, FÜNFHUNDERT PRO MONAT. He does not consider the Saxon Band, he does not conceive Thomas König, he does not recall the faces of his family. Helmut lies back and he tries to think of a convenient nothingness. 

He fails. 

-

Wiebke stares at him.

„What?“ Helmut asks, tearing into a chunk of bread. His teeth ache.

Your sister hasn’t been feeling well.

Helmut says nothing to this. He shrugs and feels terrible about it. He feels helpless. 

I’m just really worried about her, Helmut. 

„She’s starving“, he says and feels dull inside. „My whole family is starving.“

We’re all starving, she says. 

„I know“, he says and chews some more. The bread is tough. Old man Effler gave it to him. He wishes old man Effler would get around to paying him, instead. 

Wiebke has dark eyes. They’re murky, like pond water when the mud is shaken up, clouding to the surface. She seems very old for her age, at times. Her eyes judge him, appraise him. He fears they will someday suck him in. 

He looks away. „I know“, he repeats. 

It’s no one’s fault, I suppose, she says. 

„Of course it’s someone’s“, he replies. „Logically.“

Logically.

„Yes.“

But whom do we blame? 

„I don’t know“, he says, but he does. He knows. He knows and he holds that knowledge deep in his breast, tucked behind his sternum, where it will hopefully smother to death in due time. We blame The Lord and The State, that’s what we blame. The only two creatures that hold any power in this world.

-

Dr. Kleidermann taps out something in Morse code against his jutting spine. He mutely hums Wagner. Helmut has never really cared for Wagner. Too brassy, he supposes. Wagner hated Mendelssohn, after all. Wagner hated Mendelssohn for all the reasons people hate Mendelssohn today, though, so Helmut supposes he can’t blame him. 

Or maybe he can. He isn’t sure. 

Thinking? Dr. Kleidermann asks. 

Helmut nods with a creaking neck. He feels terribly tired. He feels lost and adrift and he hates this feeling but he can’t care enough to hate the cause. His fingers are going numb. This is a common occurrence after dosage day. 

What are you thinking, I wonder, Dr. Kleidermann says. He strips his gloves off, setting them on the table, beside Helmut’s quivering thigh. 

I don’t know, he thinks. I don’t know. I don’t know! I don’t know. I feel like cotton. I feel lost. Adrift. Denied. And I’d be terrified by this, if I had the agency to feel, because I’m not sure if I deserve this or not. I’m not sure if I earned this or if I’m earning something at all. This is all so senseless. 

If the world makes sense, he thinks, it will take me away from here. Or explain something. Or just let me die. 

-

Thomas is a good man. Helmut knows this objectively. 

“Dying,” Thomas says to him, “is not a peaceful ordeal.”

Helmut hums, his fingers tapping out a melody in the grass. The clouds are white. He wonders why clouds are white. 

“It’s not beautiful, either. We go to The Lord, in the end, but the method of travel is dreadful.”

„Why do you think that is?“ Helmut asks quietly. The wind tugs at his hair. The sky blinds his eyes. He does not look away. 

“I don’t know,” Thomas says. “I don’t suppose it’s my place, to question The Lord.”

Helmut hums absently. The sun warms his skin. He’ll burn if he stays out here too long. But not yet. 

“We all just have to trust that it’s worth it.”

No, not yet. 

-

It’s not worth it. The pay, Helmut means. FÜNFHUNDERT PRO MONAT does not account for the needles or the dead eyes or the exercise. FÜNFHUNDERT PRO MONAT does not mention the chill up his spine, the too too bright lights, the Latin, the dreamless sleep, the dream-like consciousness. The horror, the horror. 

Helmut wishes he were dead. He wishes he were the first one gone, but he has a bet to win for Dr. Kleidermann. He has to hang on. He has the power to make someone happy, damn it, and he’s going to use it. It’s the only power he has. He’s going to abuse it to its full potential, like all humans do. Because Helmut is undeniably human. He is. _He is human._

You need to stay very still, Dr. Kleidermann says, hand on his shoulder. Helmut focuses on that hand, covets that hand. He stares up at the bright lights. They hurt his eyes. His eyes water. He does not look away.

This is going to hurt, Dr. Kleidermann says. He presses his hand over Helmut’s bicep. Right here, he says. 

When the currents start, Helmut feels gratitude. 

-

He laughs and Wiebke smiles a good smile. Wiebke really is a lovely girl. She scares him, in a way, but. But. 

Don’t be a fool, Brigitte sniffs. You’re such an idealist, Helmut. It’s over-simplification. You’re always over-simplifying everything. 

„I suppose so“, he says. There’s a sparrow outside the window. 

Honestly, sometimes I think you’d marry a Gypsy just to make a point of it. 

„Oh, no“, he says, leaning on the lid of the piano. „I don’t suppose I’d stoop that far. I just don’t like to swallow poison, you understand? I don’t like those bad thoughts, the kind that tell us all we’re just here for sick, stupid reasons. I don’t like this idea that we need to earn some decent treatment.“

Brigitte snorts. Wiebke smiles that good smile. Her eyes are dark. Helmut looks away. 

„I just want everyone to know he’s capable of being a good person“, he says. 

And what is a good person? Wiebke says. Her voice is hushed and measured. 

„I’m not sure.“ Helmut stares out the window. „I suppose I’m still figuring that one out for myself. I’ll let you know when I think of something new.“ 

-

Georg mutters incomprehensibly, counting on his fingers, at injection hour. 

Helmut doesn’t ask him what he’s doing. He’s seen Thomas do something similar, before. He feels brittle and tired when he thinks about it.

Helmut lets Georg sob out his Latin death throes beside him. He says nothing. He raises his eyes to Heaven and he says nothing when Dr. Below grabs the crook of his elbow. 

Stop doing that, another boy hisses. 

Georg bites his tongue. His fingers do not still. 

Helmut says nothing. 

-

“The Lord is, over all things, competent,” Thomas says, breath wet against Helmut’s face. Helmut can only blink. He does not move. He does not close the distance. “I read that, once. I read that The Lord knows when you deny Him, he knows when you lie, He knows what you hide in your heart of hearts. He knows if you have decried His Prophets and Messiahs behind His back. He has no back, for He is the east and the west. There is only The Lord’s face.”

Helmut says nothing. He blinks again. He feels the tangle of Thomas’s fingers in his hair. He feels the pillow against his neck. He feels Thomas’s breath across his face. He feels the chill of his room and the line of light falling against their calves. He thinks of FÜNFHUNDERT PRO MONAT. He thinks, Have I turned away from Thomas’s Catholic God? Will I be cast into Catholic Hell? I am a creature of profit and sacrifice. I am the fatted yellow cow. 

Thomas continues, “You have no protector other than The Lord. Yours is not to question. Yours is to do as The Lord commands.”

And if I wish to understand why? Is that sin? Pursuit of understanding appears to be a grievance to your people, the Catholics. Were not Adam and his ilk cast away from paradise for their self-awareness? What crime is this? What protector does such a thing? What protector demands nothing less than blind trust?

Thomas’s fingers twitch, tugging at his scalp. It’s not unpleasant. Helmut loves, and it aches. Thomas’s brown eyes stare at some fixed point beyond his head. He hums absently. “I worry about you,” he says. “I worry about you, Saint Sebastian.”

Helmut doesn’t know what to say. He wishes Thomas would tug again. He wishes Thomas would move his face two inches closer. He wishes Thomas would tell him who Saint Sebastian is. He wishes. 

He knows it all amounts to nothing. 

-

What, Helmut hisses through lips too dry to make a sound, did you stick in me you sonovabitch? He jerks his arm toward the needle. It’s foggy. He can hardly move. He feels as spread thin and delicate as an eyelid. 

Phencyclidine, Dr. Waltz says, tapping the table. He is like Dr. Kleidermann in that he understands Helmut somewhat. Somewhat. 

Helmut doesn’t know what that means. Helmut has no idea what that means. Helmut has no idea. Helmut doesn’t know. Oh God. Oh God. Oh Jesus, oh Joseph, Mother Mary, God in Heaven, Helmut doesn’t understand what that means, he doesn’t—

A higher dose than you usually receive, I’m afraid. We’re starting to think it’s an anesthetic, with the way it subdues you fellows, but it appears that this dosage has made you rather erratic. 

His brain is ready to float out of his skull. He does hate this. He feels unreal. 

Get out, he wants to yell. Get out, get out, I don’t want your Reinhard Heydrich. I see him, lurking in the corner. Begone, devil!

His skull burns. He can’t escape it, can’t throw it away, wants to run and hide somewhere, wants to curl in on himself, on his gelatinous mass, but he cannot. 

Calm down, Dr. Waltz says, grabbing at his hands. Through bleary eyes, Helmut can see that they are red. Bloody. His fingers. 

He has holes in his scalp though, so he keeps trying to reach up. 

Shit, Dr. Waltz says. Look, I don’t want to restrain you. 

He can’t stop reaching up, though. He’s rotting through the core. He needs to severe the infection. It’s a matter of preservation. He has to win that bet. 

He closes his eyes, though, blocks out Dr. Waltz’s fretting, blocks out the maggots, and remembers one great truth: nothing lasts forever. 

-

“I have you,” Thomas whispers against his ear, arms around his torso, chest against his back. “I have you.”

Helmut sniffles weakly in reply. 

-

Brigitte sniffles from under her quilt. Helmut strokes the cloth covering her ankle. He feels dead inside, thinking about how frail and cold she is beneath that. 

When are you going to sing for me? she says. 

„I thought you hated it when I sang“, he says. 

I’m sick. I’m scared. Don’t make me admit difficult things. 

He doesn’t say anything to that. 

Helmut?

„I’m still here.“

I’m not going to die, Helmut. 

He stares at the blinds over her window. His hand does not leave her. „You don’t know that.“

I’m scared enough, Helmut, I don’t need you planning my funeral in front of me.

„I know“, he says, licking his lips. „But sometimes, I can’t be your big brother. Sometimes, I can’t be what you need.“ Sometimes, I’m angry with myself. Sometimes, I think horribly irrational things, I think that if I had given that stale bread crust to you that one afternoon, this wouldn’t have ever happened. 

Please sing. I like your singing. I lied about not liking your singing, she says tiredly. 

Helmut wishes, more than anything, that he could be everything everyone needed at all times. He wishes he were free of want. He wishes he didn’t have to make everything about him. He wishes he could simply serve other people and do good and shed that selfish, sick part of him like a snake, cleaner and clearer. A more loving, complete individual. 

„Okay“, he says to her and does. 

-

You’re getting thin, Dr. Kleidermann says. There is no judgment in his voice. It is simple observation. 

Helmut says nothing. 

-

Nothing lasts forever. Nothing ever lasts forever. 

—kiss me you sick bastard, kiss me, kiss me, put your mouth on mine, you faggot—

And if those words make you cringe, if they make you curl in on yourself and wish you could hide under your skin, well. You suppose that just makes you sensible. Helmut is sensible. He has never kissed Thomas or…or anyone, actually. He’ll keep it that way, he supposes. He can’t be bothered with things like that, what with the frail state of reality, such as it is. 

His love for Thomas is a pure, untarnished thing. It might be the only pure, untarnished thing in the whole, sad, sordid gray world. Things like that, sick things like that, would simply…complicate it all. And it would become frailer. It would sicken. It would die. And Helmut would die with it, he just knows. He _knows_ his heart would break, he would die of it. 

He isn’t going to die. He has a bet to win. He has a bet to win, he has a bet to win for a man he barely knows, but he’s going to _win,_ he has to, he just. He has to. 

Helmut thinks of Thomas. He thinks of Thomas becoming a Romanist priest. His stomach turns. _Then what do you want?_ his brain screams. What do you want? You want to…sit around some fireplace by yourselves, mutter to each other about the weather, toss a log on the fire? How is that pure, untarnished? How is it anything other than a depressing mockery of domesticity?

He isn’t sure. He resolves not to think about it. He shan’t think of Thomas König. When he thinks of Thomas, he gets awful distressed. 

Don’t think, then. Think nothing. But he can’t. He can’t stop thinking. He can’t stop the words.

Helmut says nothing. 

-

Helmut’s father works long hours in the mill. When he comes home, he doesn’t like noise. He hears enough damn grinding at work, he says, he doesn’t need to hear it when all he wants is a hot meal and the radio. 

Helmut’s father’s face is purple the night they have nothing on the table. That was the day Helmut ate Herr Effler’s bread. That was the day Brigitte became one waist size thinner. (Gradual things, you’re not the tipping point of the universe, Helmut, you’re not _important.)_ Helmut’s father says nothing, which is far more frightening than when he yells. As the night wears on, as they sit around the radio in the sitting room, Helmut finds his father looks less and less angry and simply…tired. Tired. Dull. Old. 

Helmut’s father is very old. 

That is a terrifying revelation.

Helmut sees his father as a swaying, fragile creature, and this horrifies him in a way he did not think possible. It is not love. It is the idea that the hierarchy of his perceived world is crumbling and that shakes him to his core. Their patriarch is dead. Helmut is not ready. 

Anxiously, his eyes dart to his mother and sister, to see if they have noticed this shift in their axes. Brigitte is brittle, a sepia bird-boned statue. His gut twists painfully whenever he sees her. He feels a great responsibility for Brigitte, he truly does. She is his flesh and blood. He owes her everything. 

His mother sits tall and prim, lips screwed tightly closed, eyes glaring out the window. She glances at him when she senses his attention. Her jaw tenses. She swallows. Her face is smooth. 

She knows. 

Helmut flinches away. He isn’t ready. He really isn’t ready. He knows nature, he knows what he has to do, but he’s too young, he’s just too young, he’s too young and his father is too old. 

He needs to learn how to become selfless faster.

-

The needles hurt. The running hurts. He feels shaky and dehydrated or…or maybe over-hydrated, he isn’t sure which, he just knows that he _aches_ somewhere deep inside, somewhere that has never been touched by anything before, something that _shouldn’t_ be touched. 

Helmut clenches his jaw. Du bist brav. Du bist stark. Du bist männlicher Schwein. The thoughts make him ill. That’s _Mister_ to you, he thinks back at himself. That’s _Sie_ to you. Let’s not get too intimate. I don’t know you so well. I’m not sure I want to. So it’s _Herr Heydrich_ and the rest follows after that. 

-

Thomas counts on his fingers and presses them to his eyes and his heart and his breast and he mutters and he has tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, and he raises his eyes to Heaven and Helmut does not know what ails him. 

“I’m scared,” Thomas whimpers, when he stops, when he stills. “I’m real scared, Helmut.”

Helmut bumps his shoulder hesitantly, staring down at Thomas’s quivering fingers. 

Thomas leans his head against Helmut’s shoulder. His breath hitches wetly. 

Helmut finds his words lost. He is unsure. He wraps a hesitant arm around Thomas. 

Thomas doesn’t tell him what happened. Helmut doesn’t ask. He feels wrong, to ask what sort of unholy thing would hurt Thomas. He fears asking only makes it fresher. He feels sullied and weak, beside Thomas. He thinks of all the times he has ever wept and he feels as though whatever it is that Thomas must weep over, it is a pain alien to Helmut. 

Thomas keeps pressing his fingers against his face and chest. He kisses his fingers. He mumbles and whines. He stares at the sky and he stares at Helmut. Helmut can only cringe and bear it. 

“You won’t ask me what’s wrong because you’re afraid you won’t understand,” Thomas mutters, eventually. 

Helmut hums weakly in reply. His fingers are against Thomas’s clothed arm. Thomas’s skin is warm beneath it. His fingers shiver. 

“And you’re right,” he continues. “You won’t.”

„I won’t ask because I don’t want to hurt you“, Helmut says, feeling rather lost. 

“And yet I am hurt.”

„Yet you are.“

“It’s not your fault,” Thomas says. 

„I know.“

“Yet I must assure you.”

Helmut shrugs. 

“No need to feel bad. Everybody’s this way. Me too.” Thomas seems as composed as ever, only ruffled now, yet he does not remove his head from Helmut’s shoulder. His breath ghosts against his clavicle. “I’ve had to reassure myself this wasn’t my fault fifteen times already.”

„Is it?“

“My fault?”

„Yes.“

“No,” he says. “But you know how this sort of stuff goes. We always want to blame ourselves because if it’s our fault, if it’s our doing, it can also be our undoing. If we caused it, surely we can reverse it.”

But that’s not life. People are reactors, by nature. Helmut knows this line of thought. God _acts_ , people _respond._ He’s heard it from Thomas’s lips time and time again. And that is why only The Lord makes it so, because we are incapable of true synthesis. Only mimicry. Only plagiarism. We are made from His dust and as such, we are only fit for dust. 

„It’s all we ever amount to“, Helmut says, making Thomas’s eventual conclusion for him. 

“Yes,” Thomas says, and Helmut can hear the quirk in his mouth. “God knows if you agree with me, but you do listen.”

„I listen to everything you say.“

Thomas’s breath is warm and wet against his neck. It’s uncomfortable. Helmut likes it. “I’m scared for my family,” he says.

Helmut purses his lips, biting back a reply. Biting back _It’s safe, you’re safe, I’ll protect you_ because those are empty statements. 

“My mom really likes you, by the way.”

„Mm.“

“Really! She’s very glad I have friends.”

Helmut’s fingers are lax against Thomas. He wants to curl them. He does not. He glances down at Thomas’s head. He loves. 

(He knows it isn’t enough, but oh. Oh.)

-

You’re a damned fool, he says as calmly as he can when, inside, he is fuming. You’re a damned fool, I don’t know _how_ you got these stupid ideas in your head, I don’t _know_. 

„You know“, Helmut says with a wry smile, „I didn’t become this way over night.“

Dr. Kleidermann says nothing. 

-

Helmut awakens to Dr. Below screeching and gesticulating, just outside his door. 

I don’t _want_ Geiger here, he says shrilly. 

Dr. Waltz’s voice is heard, muffled by the wall. 

No! Below shrieks. No, no! Fuck you!

The comforter scratches against Helmut’s skin as he shifts. He doesn’t care much, he supposes. It’s only a preference, to listen. Mild curiosity. A part of human nature that he has finally claimed. 

Shut the fuck _up,_ Dr. Below wails. 

Muffled, Dr. Kleidermann speaks. Bits come through. …Can’t…why…is wrong…

Helmut chews the inside of his cheek. It’s already bloody. (It’s always bloody.)

 _I didn’t sign up for this_ , Below screams. 

Helmut thinks of the Saxon Band. He thinks of birds. He loves birds. He used to keep a bird journal. He thinks of their little chirps, the high noises they blurt at each other in anger. 

That…nutjob can go somewhere else, he blusters. 

Helmut thinks of the birds. He lays back and he thinks of the birds. Bright plumage, dull plumage, big beaks, small beaks. Birds that eat. Birds that mate. Birds that scream. He thinks of them. He considers them, in their filth, as he lies in his own. 

I’m tired of this, Below hisses. 

Helmut considers. 

-

Thomas presses his fingers to Helmut’s forehead, his sternum, and his breasts. He kisses those fingers, lips shivering, eyes wet. Helmut says nothing. “For protection,” Thomas says. “The Lord is blessing you. I’m asking Him to bless you.”

A holy act then, the fingers. Helmut does not understand. Helmut says nothing, however. He has no words. He knows he would only be screaming into the void.

“I wish you’d convert,” Thomas says with a hysterical smile. “I really do. Not to say The Lord doesn’t love you already, Helmut, but. But I worry. You can understand my worry, can’t you?”

Helmut supposes he does. 

He can’t learn Latin, however, he knows this. You have to speak Latin in order to be a Catholic. 

Thomas is so lovely. Thomas is too holy for him. Thomas is human. 

There is a myth, Helmut knows, told of by the Mesopotamians, that humans were cut from the flesh of a dead god or something along those lines. That humans wore clothing because they were a step above the animals and wanted to be a step above the gods. 

You were cut from the flesh of God, he wants to tell Thomas. He knows what Thomas would say. He knows that Thomas would splutter and his eyes would dart. _Blasphemy_ , he’d say. Blasphemy. 

So Helmut says nothing. 

-

Strip, Dr. Waltz says. 

Excuse me? Helmut stops himself from asking. He simply stands there, dumbfound. 

Take off your clothes, he says. 

His fingers creep to the top button of his shirt and hesitate. He can’t explain the feeling. It’s more than confusion. It’s… It’s quite terrible, whatever it is. 

Dr. Waltz sighs , pulling out his pocket watch. Do you need help? he snaps with as much fervor as a man so terribly disinterested in life can afford.

Helmut’s throat closes up. His fingers slip it through the hole, fumbling. He thinks of his sister. He thinks of his sister undressing for a man. It makes him ill. He thinks of her thinking of him undressing for a man and wants to throw up. 

He shucks his shirt off, drops his trousers, shivers in the air. 

Undergarments, Dr. Waltz says. 

He undoes his socks and shoves off his undershirt. His hands rest on his shorts uncertainly. He feels quite sick now, shifting. 

I really don’t have all day, he says. I’ve got twenty boys to process after you. 

He steps out of his shorts gingerly. 

Dr. Waltz says nothing. 

Helmut says nothing. 

Whatever, Dr. Waltz says. Leave your clothes there. Bend over. I need to make sure you’re not carrying contraband. 

Helmut doesn’t know what he means by that. He bends over. 

Hold your cheeks and cough, Dr. Waltz says behind him. 

Helmut does so. His face is red. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He has to widen his stance to avoid falling over. He hates this. He hates this. This is what he’s amounted to. This is it. He hates this. 

Okay, Dr. Waltz says. You’re done. Put your clothes over there. Go into the next room. Dr. Kleidermann should be ready for you now. 

-

What do you _want,_ Helmut? she snaps. 

Helmut says nothing. 

Wiebke presses her fingers to her face. She sighs a tired, strained sigh. What do you want? she hisses.

Helmut says nothing. 

She swallows, her throat spasming. She blinks up at the ceiling. She is trying not to cry. I miss you, she says.

Helmut says nothing. 

-

Be, Dr. Kleidermann breathes. Be. 

Sei. 

And it is so. 

Helmut opens his eyes. He is. 

-

„You treat me right“, Helmut says firmly, fingers clutching the starch fabric of Thomas’s shirt. „You’re good to me.“ Thomas smells like sweat and pine and man, sharp and sour in Helmut’s nose. He loves it in a sick, wet part of him. 

“Are you alright?” Thomas asks, a tremor to his voice. 

„I don’t know“, he laughs. The rain pounds against the window like an uneven drum beat. There’s something elementary in his blood, right now. 

Thomas gently grasps his hands and untangles them from his clothing, stepping back. “You should sleep,” he says. 

„You should kiss me“, Helmut says, grinning and feeling sick inside, disgusting. 

Thomas has a strange look on his face. He does not look away, though. He does not turn away. He simply blinks. He simply cocks his head. He simply sighs. 

„I’m sorry“, Helmut says. 

“Are you drunk?”

„No. I don’t drink.“

“Right.” Thomas runs a hand through his hair. “Right.”

„I’m scared, Thomas“, Helmut says. „I’m about to do something selfless, soon, and I’m scared.“

Thomas’s head snaps up. “What?” he asks, an undercurrent to his question. 

„I can’t tell you. You wouldn’t let me do it.“

“You’re always so determined to be a martyr,” Thomas says, tired. “You’d die for all of us twice, if you could.”

Helmut shrugs. He isn’t sure where Thomas got that idea. Helmut is snide and selfish and petty and pathetic. He has a sickness in his gut that makes him want to press his face between Thomas’s shoulder blades and weep. He says nothing. 

“Come here,” Thomas says and opens his arms. Thomas is a good man, honest, and knowing when to quit. Helmut walks between them and lets them encase him. “You’re a stupid, stupid man,” Thomas sighs. Helmut feels light inside at those words, brittle and unsteady. 

It doesn’t feel bad at all.

 


End file.
